Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds – When exciting, awesome and inspiring ideas, are revealed to be obvious fantasies, that we really should have seen though.

Personal parables are like regular parables, but they come from modern media and tend to be oddly specific to yourself. See my whole collection.

The thing with personal parables is how they constantly inject themselves into your mind. Like uncontrollably recurring metaphors. In a relentlessly repetitive way, this one has been most present throughout my adulthood and professional career. It’s also perhaps my most random and left-field personal parable reference (even more so than the 1991 Christmas TV movie Bernard and the Genie).

It’s a track from Jeff Wayne’s 1978 dramatised musical version of The War of the Worlds titled, Brave New World.

Featuring Richard Burton as the the Narrator, and David Essex as the Artilleryman, it’s just over half way through the album. The Martians have already attacked earth, and wiped out all towns and cities. The Narrator is wandering the countryside, looking for survivors, trying to avoid Martians, when he comes across an Artilleryman that he met during the initial attack.

After initial shock, they get to chatting. They share realisations that “we’re done for” and that it’s pointless to try and fight back. Instead, says the Artilleryman, “we’ve got to fight for survival, and I reckon we can make it. I’ve got a plan…” Which he proceeds to tell, in song.

I highly recommend that you listen to the track to get the full effect of this personal parable, as it’s very much about the build up before the punch line. Also, in my humble opinion of prog rock, the tune is bloody brilliant. It’s also 12 min long and the parable takes 9 min 54 seconds to hit, but again, that build up is kind of the whole point.

Here’s what unfolds. The Artilleryman begins to explain with a monologue…

We’re gonna build a whole new world for ourselves. Look, [the Martians] clap eyes on us and we’re dead, right? So we gotta make a new life where they’ll never find us. You know where? Underground!

You should see it down there – hundreds of miles of drains – sweet and clean now after the rain! Dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch! And what’s so bad about living underground eh? It’s not been so great living up here, if you want my opinion!

What perfect pitch technique! He grabs attention, frames the problem, introduces the solution, and starts to sell the benefits. Perfect ‘tell them what you’re going to tell them‘ strategy. He then moves on to sing and reiterate the plan in more detail…

Take a look around you at the world we’ve come to know
Does it seem to be much more than a crazy circus show?
But maybe from the madness something beautiful will grow

In a brave new world
With just a handful of men
We’ll start-
We’ll start all over again!
All over again!
All over again!
All over again!

He goes on to explain that they’ll “build shops and hospitals and barracks… banks, prisons and schools… villages and towns” and that they’ll “play each other at cricket!” (remember, this is all underground).

He imagines one day they’ll even capture a Martian tripod fighting machine, learn how to make them themselves, and be able to use their weapons against them. To beat them at their own game.

He continues, narrating and singing, all the while with this awesome uplifting prog rock track in the background. The kind of tune you get in the final battle scene of a movie, right before the goodies triumph.

He proposes that “the chance has come at last – to build a better future from the ashes of the past”. He sings of freedom, and of saving the strong, on and on he goes, rousing and enthralling with awesome ideas before concluding…

I’ve got a plan! Can’t you just see it? Civilisation starting all over again – a second chance. We’ll even build a railway and tunnel to the coast, go there for our holidays. Nothing can stop men like us.

I’ve made a start already.

Come on down here and have a look…

Secret tunnels and seaside holidays as well! Where do we sign dear Artilleryman? Take my money!

Here’s an illustration from the LP inlay booklet. A double page 12 inch spread. This low res copy doesn’t nearly do it justice (the YouTube video actually has a better quality version), but you get the picture.

This is what the Artilleryman was singing about. Building this is how humanity will survive and rebuilt itself. (Note the cricket pitch and sky trains, off on the their way to the coast).

Awesome! Where were we? Oh yes.

The Artilleryman just said…

…

I’ve made a start already.

Come on down here and have a look…

The music settles. And, for the first time in 9 or so glorious and optimistic minutes, the Narrator’s internal monologue returns…

In the cellar was a tunnel scarcely ten yards long, that had taken him a week to dig. I could have dug that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers…

Oooff!

It was all just nonsense. Pure pitch deck fantasy. What a gut punch. What an empty and sad way to end the excitement.

But, ask yourself which is sadder? How deranged the Artilleryman had clearly been? Or that we bought into it, and allowed the nonsense to unfold?

For me, this personal parable has hit a lot in the worlds of design and tech. Most recently with products like the Humane AI Pin, Rabbit r1, Apple Vision Pro, or with anything that Musk says. But on a personal level, it’s come to mind more times than I’m brave enough to admit. Because if I’m really honest, I’ve been in both roles. Artilleryman and Narrator. Both having been deranged, and complicit in the derangement.

When listening to start-up founder aspirations. When reading client briefs and comparing their expected outcomes to their budgets. When in workshops or kick-off meetings before any work has been done and the talk is all blue skies. Or in show and tells. Or interviews. Or pitches and bids.

I don’t feel like explaining why this is back so firmly in my mind at the moment, but clearly it was enough to finally write it all up (although, this was also in part due to finally finding the Brave New World YouTube track to link to, along with the Genius page with the transcript and lyrics).

But if you’ve got this far and you’re interested, and it resonates, then get in touch. I think this parable is a particularly good one to share and discuss examples of.

And, get in touch if you also had a parent that played this LP and showed you the scary inlay when you were way too young to process it! Perhaps we can share and soothe those emotional scars as wel!